Walter Raleigh

Walter Raleigh (also spelled Ralegh, Rawleigh) was an English explorer, soldier, writer and statesman who lived during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. He was born in East Budleigh, Devon, around 1552 or 1554 to a Protestant family of landed gentry. He studied at Oxford University and joined the Huguenot army in France as a young man. He later served in Elizabeth's army in Ireland, where he distinguished himself by his brutality and his plantation of English settlers. He rose rapidly in the queen's favour and was knighted in 1585. He was granted a royal patent to explore and colonize Virginia, which he named after the Virgin Queen. He sent several expeditions to North America, including the ill-fated Roanoke colony that mysteriously disappeared. He also introduced tobacco and potatoes to England from the New World. He was a prominent figure in the English court and a patron of arts and literature. He wrote several works of history, poetry and political philosophy, such as The Discovery of Guiana (1596), The History of the World (1614) and The Lie (1618). He also participated in several naval battles against the Spanish, such as the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the capture of Cadiz in 1596. He married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, in secret in 1591, which angered Elizabeth and led to his imprisonment in the Tower of London for a while. He was released after he promised to find El Dorado, a mythical land of gold in South America. He failed to do so but returned with some loot from a Spanish outpost. After Elizabeth's death in 1603, Raleigh fell out of favour with her successor James I, who distrusted and feared him. He was accused of being involved in a plot to overthrow the king and was sentenced to death for treason. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in the Tower, where he spent 13 years writing his History of the World. He was released in 1616 to lead another expedition to find El Dorado, but he again failed and violated the peace treaty with Spain by attacking another Spanish settlement. This angered both James I and the Spanish king Philip III, who demanded Raleigh's execution. Raleigh was beheaded on 29 October 1618 at Whitehall Palace. His head was embalmed and given to his wife, who kept it until her death.¹²